About Mia
I’ve spent more than 35 years exploring what happens when we stand in front of other people and ask them to listen.
I began as an actor. After earning my MFA in Acting, my first professional job took me to Lincoln Center Theater, where I performed nearly 200 shows in mask. Years later came Tantalus, an extraordinary 10-hour theatrical epic with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Denver Center for the Performing Arts. We rehearsed for nine months, premiered in Denver, and toured the UK.
I stayed in England after the tour and had the remarkable opportunity to work with John Barton, co-founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who directed me in a solo piece at Camden People’s Theatre.
And I kept going.
My career has moved between classical and contemporary theater, teaching, and voice work — including Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., Hartford Stage, Portland Stage, Cherry Lane Theatre, Berkeley Rep, and two years doing voice and scratch work with Pixar, eventually voicing Aunt Lily in Turning Red.
But the theater has only been one of my classrooms.
For more than 20 years, I’ve taught actors and speakers — from beginners finding their voices to seasoned professionals deepening their craft. Teaching taught me something I carry into my work every day: there is no single way in. What opens one person may close another.
For more than a decade, I also studied with cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien, author of The Four-Fold Way. After her death, I continued that exploration with her protégé Patrick O’Neill. ServiceSpace, meditation, peace walks and retreats have all deepened my understanding of presence, listening, relationship and what it means to truly meet another person.
And then there is what life itself teaches us.
In 2003, I left New York to help care for my grandmother, who had dementia. For 16 years, caregiving lived alongside my acting, teaching and everything else. It changed me. It taught me about dignity, advocacy, patience, love — and the importance of helping someone hold onto their voice when so much else is changing.
None of these parts of my life happened in a neat sequence.
I didn’t stop being an actor to become a teacher, or stop being a teacher to become a coach.
They all come into the room with me.
Today, I work with founders, executives, creatives and speakers. I bring decades of understanding voice, story, presence and audience; years of teaching people who learn and communicate in very different ways; a deep practice of listening and curiosity; and a life that has required me to change, begin again and keep becoming, too.
Maybe that’s why I have so little interest in formulas.
The formulas may work.
But they can also flatten people.
I’m much more interested in the person underneath them.
The voice that is already there.
The story that genuinely wants to be told.
The thing you know but haven’t quite found the words for yet.
After all these years, I’m still learning. I’m still curious.
I don’t believe you need to become a better version of someone else.
I believe there is more of you available.
And that’s usually where I like to begin.